Former Wekweètì SAO, Whatì housing employee sentenced for fraud

A woman who worked as a senior administrator for Wekweètì's community government and later the Northwest Territories housing corporation will serve a one-year sentence for defrauding both employers to the tune of $13,000.

Grace Maria Angel, 49, rose briefly to say "I'm sorry," her voice breaking after hearing lawyers recount how she defrauded the Tłı̨chǫ government of $5,084, fraudulently booked $1,311 in flights on the housing corporation's Air Tindi accounts and stole $6,800 in cash rent payments.

She will repay the money in $300 monthly instalments starting in July.

Angel will serve the first six months of her sentence on house arrest, and the remaining six with strict conditions including a 10 p.m. curfew and reporting regularly to a probation officer.

The court heard from Crown lawyer Matthew Scott that Angel worked for Wekweètì community government from 2010 until 2016, where she was responsible for handling large sums of money and had "poor record keeping."

As SAO, Angel was making purchases on her credit card and being reimbursed for significant amounts by the community government which did not hold a credit card itself.

An audit revealed that Angel was reimbursed for more than $263,533 in legitimate expenses with receipts. 

But by 2016, "concerns arose" for Wekweètì council members about how Angel was managing the band's money. They launched a partial forensic audit.

They found purchases, like a bill from Quality Furniture for $5,084 for a queen bed and frame, a coffee table and a dining room table which Angel had delivered to a Yellowknife address.

Some of the furniture went to her new house in Whatì, where she took a job as housing manager for the Northwest Territories Housing corporation.

After leaving the community government, Angel sold most of the items on Facebook marketplace, the crown said.

By this time, she was committing a new type of fraud — collecting cash payments from housing corporation renters and improperly registering those amounts in two separate accounting softwares, the Crown lawyer said.

Angel would register tenants as paid up on the territorial software so they wouldn't be evicted.

She marked upwards of $16,000 in cash payments on the territory's management system but not on Sage, a popular business accounting software.